Hail The Fallen - The New Year Approaches

In 2025, I have painted more miniatures in one year than I have ever painted before. Today I capped the year off by painting two of the same model - Erika Chappell's Scrungaloid 01, "Tag and Release". The Scrungaloids are quite clearly variations of the Rogue Trader Space Marines from the RTB01 set and the associated metal models produced around the same time, and as a result I looked to Rogue Trader for the colour schemes. Obviously the Crimson Fists needed representation, and then I wanted a nicely wild option for the other one, and what better than the original red-and-yellow dazzle pattern Minotaurs from the famous spread of Chapters represented in the Badab War?

Brother Greg, of the Crimson Fists Red Hand, and Brother Pax of the Minotaurs Angry Bull-Men (both legally distinct names and concepts thank you). I used different bases to see which looked better; I think the larger base does actually suit Marines more than the 25mm one, but the 25mm one is the proper period base for the 1980s and well into the 2000s too for that matter

I leant into the graffiti bit from Rogue Trader - both Greg and Pax have various things written on their armour; Pax has LUV and HATE on his kneepads, and Greg has KIL on his right greave and DIE on his left hand

You can't expect a Space Marine Scrungaloid to know how to spell

You get a good view of Pax's dazzle scheme here. I did it a lot more crudely and simply than the last time I painted this scheme, just in case I'm unhinged enough to turn this one mini into a proper force...

This model is a really really good interpretation of the 1980s beakie Marines, and I'm very excited to see what else Erika's made for Scrungaloids: The Lowest Form Of Life

So with that, my painting spree for 2025 has come to an end. Over the course of the year I painted over 500 models for a total of 548 Painting Points! On average I completed one and a half Painting Points' worth of models a day, so my goal for 2026 is to equal or beat that. Coincidentally, Games Workshop has a promotion on where they're trying to get a million miniatures painted in 2026, and if you paint 100 between Janury 17th and May 9th you get a whole bunch of swag, which I'm very keen to get my paws on! Obviously that has to be 100 Games Workshop miniatures, but I do in fact have at least 100 of those unpainted kicking around... and I can buy some new ones as well, mwahahaha.

Other than "paint 100 GW models between Jan 17th and May 9th" my wargaming goals for 2026 are as follows:

• Open and run the LUNAR Club in Llangefni
• Run a Mordheim campaign at LUNAR Club
• Finish the Maiden Guard and participate in the Old World Escalation League with them
• Complete (or continue) the magnetisation and storage of my collection
• Finish at least the ruined buildings from my 40K terrain collection

I wonder how successful I'll be!

Painting Points:
Today: 2
This Week: 2
2025: 548

 

Is It A Bird? Is It A Plane? No! It's A...

 ...SCRUNGALOID! 

Almost no work done today, but - but! - I did print two Scrungaloids from Erika Chappell's upcoming game, Scrungaloids: The Lowest Form Of Life, which I am aiming to paint... err... tomorrow. 

They may look like RTB01 Marines, but these are legally distinct SCRUNGALOIDS, I assure you

Why so quickly? Well, there's a challenge - if I can paint one to completion before January the first, I get a free starter set (PDF rules and STL files) and I am actually quite excited about that. I'm going to try and do one up in simple colours and the other in a more esoteric scheme. Something like this, maybe:

I painted one of these years ago, I can paint one again!

Tune in next time to see how deranged the last day of 2025 makes me...!

Dungeons, Dragons, And High Elves

My son, T, has been staying (as he frequently does) and yesterday, not only did we manage to make time to play a game of King of Tokyo - which he won - we also started a game of Dungeons and Dragons. 3.5 Edition, of course; the edition I started with back in the early 2000s, an edition I can pretty much run without really thinking about it, and, just as traditionally, he rolled up a Human Fighter to start with.

Suffice it to say that he's been having a blast, and the adventures of his as-yet-unnamed character will, I suspect, be many and varied. As long as I keep rolling as awfully as I have been, that is. He has, as is the wont of players, totally ignored the NPCs that might be able to join him as party members, and is currently soloing everything I put in front of him. This may or may not last. We'll see if his partner E wants to join in next time she's over with him.

In painting news, I didn't do anything yesterday but today I highlighted all the leatherwork and painted the base layer of skintone onto the Maiden Guard:

Slowly getting there. Next step is to block out all the different shades of gold, then wash the skin and gold with Agrax Earthshade prior to applying highlights

I'm also going to print myself a Scrungaloid and see if I can get it crash-painted before the New Year, for a daft challenge set by Erika Chappell, the designer of the very funny and quite good little game SCRUNGALOIDS: The Lowest Form Of Life. Paint a Scrungaloid, get the starter set for free!